


Here With You

by twixtinfinity



Category: The Arcana (Visual Novel)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Memory Loss, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-24
Updated: 2018-08-24
Packaged: 2019-07-01 20:01:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,586
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15781080
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/twixtinfinity/pseuds/twixtinfinity
Summary: "Sometimes as night she cries when she thinks I can't hear."Inspired by speculation about the reverse ending of Asra's route.Asra x Alba. Implied Alba x Julian (if you squint a bit). Asra has memory loss and Alba has PTSD.So many spoilers. You've been warned.





	Here With You

Sometimes she cries at night when she thinks I don’t hear. I lay there in the darkness, trying to hold as still as I can, keeping my breathing even and shallow as she tugs a pillow over her head to stifle her sobs. Everything inside me tells me to stop pretending to sleep, to roll over and hold her until she stops crying.

 

I’m here, I want to tell her. I’m here with you.

 

But I can’t. 

 

She hates to be touched, my master. When someone comes too near, she flinches back, shying away from them like a spooked horse. Certain people can touch her - the doctor, his sister, the countess, but only briefly before she pulls away again, wrapping herself in her shawl and coat like they are her only anchor to the world. 

 

I want to touch her so badly, to hold her and kiss her tears away, but I can’t hurt her and she’s obviously been hurt before.

 

“Who was it?” I ask the doctor one time when he comes to visit, sitting with me upstairs while she tends the shop down. “Who hurt her so badly?”

 

“The old count,” he tells me, face dark. “He took someone she loved. Don’t mention it to her. Don’t think about it.”

 

But I can’t stop thinking about it. I don't remember the old count, don’t remember those days, but my blood boils when I hear his name. 

 

“Did he take someone from me too?” I ask the doctor’s sister, digging in the soft dirt of her garden. Master had to go away; she usually does after the nights I hear her crying.

 

But I’ll never leave you alone, she said, standing in the Palace hall, one hand raised like she wants to touch my face before she dropped it and turned to go.

 

Stay, I want to say. I’m here with you. But I don’t, and she’s gone.

 

“Yes,” the doctor's sister tells me. “You lost someone you loved to the Plague. But don’t mention it to her. Don’t think about it.” 

 

Don’t tell her is easy. Master isn’t here, and I don’t know where she has gone. Don’t think about it is impossible. I never stop thinking about it, never stop trying to remember. There's nothing there but white emptiness, a vast tundra of nothing. 

 

Some things I know. I know my name. I know I’m a magician, if only an apprentice. I know Vesuvia is home, that I have friends and belong here. But I want to remember so much more. I want to know who I am. I want to know how to stop my master’s tears. To tell her I am here with her.

 

“Does it hurt you to try to remember?” The countess asks over dinner, a bit of spiced swordfish suspended halfway to her mouth. “Any headaches or pain in your chest?”

 

“No,” I say, surprised. “Should there be?”

 

“That’s something, at least,” the countess replies, chewing her fish thoughtfully.

 

I can’t sleep in the big palace bed, can’t get comfortable on the feather mattress and silk sheets. I want our nest back at the magic shop, rough wool blankets and a dozen mismatched pillows. I want my master curled beside me, sleeping sweetly, not crying. Sometimes I feel like I need to hear her heartbeat to breathe.

 

But I can’t, because I can’t touch her.

 

Wandering through the garden maze, I feel a shift in my mind. This place is familiar, though it shouldn't be. I can almost see my master before me, smiling back as she leads me along the paths. Her smile is so sweet, so dazzling. Not like the sadness that seems to drown her now.

 

In the center of the maze is a wide pool, broken pillar at its center where a statue once stood. I wonder what the statue was. I wonder why it was torn down. Across the pool I see the doctor sitting below a weeping willow, half hidden by the fronds, and beside him… my master.

 

I want to run to her, scoop her up in my arms and kiss her until neither one of us can breathe, then tumble her back into the grass and stay there until the world ends. 

 

But I can't. I can't touch her, can’t hurt her again.

 

Again? Did I… was I the one who hurt her before?

 

“You have to forgive yourself,” the doctor tells her under the tree, smoothing a curl back away from her face. She flinches, and my hands ball to fists. She isn’t his to touch. 

 

“I can’t,” she tells him, voice toneless from the depths of her shawl. “I thought I could, I thought I was strong enough… but I’m not.”

 

“You are strong enough.” He moves closer, tries to take her hands but she pulls back, looking towards the tree. “Please, you can’t live like this. You have to try.”

 

“I didn't want to live at all,” she says dreamily, one hand caressing its way up the willow’s bark, eyes fixed on something I can’t see. “I wish he’d never brought me back. The price was too high.”

 

Whatever she touches on the tree, it burns through me like fire. Like lust. I gasp so loudly they both look in my direction, starting to their feet. My master drops her hand and the fire stops, but I want it to come back. For a moment…

 

For a moment I knew who I was. Who she was to me. 

 

I push past the doctor to the tree, my own hands brushing against the bark. “What was that?” I demand of my master, feeling along the trunk. “What did you do?”

 

“Nothing,” the doctor insists, trying to push his way between us, but I shove him aside, eyes fixed on her face. She’s so beautiful, a light in this dark place, and my heart aches. I know she’s more than my master. I know. 

 

“Julian,” she tells the doctor, looking up at me, small face solemn, like she’s made an irreversible decision. “Julian… please. I have to let him try.”

 

The doctor hesitates, words, an argument, on his lips. But he swallows whatever he was going to say, nodding briefly before he turns away. “Call me if you need me.”

 

A ball of light glows in her hand as she walks towards me, hesitant but determined. “You felt my touch on the tree.”

 

“Yes,” I say. “How did you know?”

 

“You told me once before. When we came here, I was your apprentice. I didn't know who I was either.”

 

“You didn't?”

 

“No.” She kneels in the dirt, ball of light cradled in her lap. “The Plague was a terrible thing. So many died, so many were lost. I was one of them. When you brought me here, I’d lost myself. But you never gave up on me. You were always here with me.”

 

“Master,” I say, but she silences me with a jerk of her head.

 

“No. I am not your master. And you are not mine.” Swallowing, she holds the light up to the tree, and I see it. Years old, dark with age and worn from touch. A lover’s promise to their beloved, I know it, though I don’t know how.  Her name, in my hand. “It had memories once. Magic. Maybe it still does.” 

 

Brightness glowing around her fingers, she hovers one hand over the carving, the other reaching out to me. “Together?” I nod, taking her hand. It belongs there, in mine. I can’t believe she let me touch her. “One, two..” With our free hands we both touch the carving, joined hands clasping tight as the magic flows from the tree through both of us like an explosion of brilliance.

 

I carved her name when I was here alone, screaming her name into the rain as I ached for her, my lover taken by the Plague and my own pride. I bargained with the Devil to bring her back to me, then held her for days, doing nothing but listening to the beat of her heart. I took her to the cave in the woods, trying to trigger her memories of herself, of us, panicking when she slid beneath the water. I listened to her heart then too, knowing if she remembered that she was coming back to me, and I ached to tell her everything. I couldn't lose her, and I tried to take her away, holding her in my arms as the sun rose over the desert, daring to love her for the first time since she came back to me. But it wasn't safe, and we returned, to trial and nightmare, the Devil stealing her soul and Lucio her body. But I couldn't live without her, and I made one more bargain. I’d given her half my heart before, but that was a joke. She was my heart, and deserved it all. 

 

“You’re here,” I say with joy, cupping her face in my hands. “You’re here with me.”

 

“Asra?” She asks, looking at me, pain and hope warring in her eyes. I bring her lips to mine and kiss her like she’s the air I need to breathe. I taste her tears and break the kiss, gathering her to me so I can feel her heart beating against my chest. “I’ve been so alone,” she sobs into my neck, and I raise her face with one finger, kissing the tears from her eyes.

 

“No, my love. I’m here with you.”

**Author's Note:**

> Standard "I don't own, I rent" disclosure. 
> 
> There's been a lot of speculation about the upright and reversed endings, and my favorite has been the idea of Asra giving up everything to save the MC and ending up with no memory while the MC takes over the Master / caretaker role. I see Alba as having a lot of PTSD from her death (and feeling like Asra abandoned her before that), and her guilt over Asra's deals to save her only make things worse. Poor kids. Ah well, I love tragic romance.


End file.
